To evoke the impression of movement in the “immobile” image is one of the central motivations of the visual art, and the activating effect of images has been discussed in art psychology already some hundred years ago. However, this topic has up to now been largely neglected by the researchers in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. This study investigates – from an interdisciplinary perspective – the formation of lateralised instances of motion when an observer perceives movement in an image. A first (...) step was to identify images that evoke a perception of movement in a certain direction and to give this a rating. Reaction times leading to the engagement of a joystick following the presentation of images are used to evidence the postulated movement occasioned by the perception of movement in an image. Where the required direction of joystick moves matched the expected perception of movement direction in the image, considerably shorter reaction times were recorded. The experiment was able to prove a “movement-image compatibility effect” in observers of images. Based on this, the paper revisits and brings up to date the theses on motor sensory response to images which were developed in art psychology at the beginning of the 20th century. It furthermore contributes an embodiment theory interpretation to the prevalent representational explanation of compatibility effects. (shrink)

The new field of quantitative health risk assessment owes its emergence much more to the 'market pull' of demand from societal decision-making processes than to dramatic advances in our ability to make the desired predictions. This paper discusses problems and opportunities in the current practice of quantitative risk estimation under three broad headings: Basic (Technical) Assessment Methodology, and Methods for Assessing Uncertainty; Conception of the Problem for Analysis, and Ways of Expressing Results; and Defining Appropriate Roles for Expert Analysts in (...) Social Decision Processes. Finally, borrowing from work of McMullin, the paper offers some criteria for judging risk assessment theories other than the generally unavailable 'goodness-of-fit' procedures. (shrink)

Os mais importantes paradoxos de decisáo social, ou seja, de votaçáo sáo apresentados. A apresentaçáo indica tanto a origem dos paradoxos discutidos quanto uma breve discussáo das mais importantes tentativas de os resolver. Sáo considerados paradoxos em que a regra de votaçáo preve ruma igualdade de peso entre os eleitores, bem como paradoxos com regras altemativas de votaçáo. A democracia tem se firmado entre a grande maioria dos povos como a maneira mais justa de organizaçáo social e , especialmente em (...) se tratando da esco lha das autoridades de uma democracia representativa, em quase axiomático 0 uso da regra da igualdade de peso de cada eleitor, embora outras regras tambem sejam usadas em clubes, instituições finançeiras e outros bastante conhecido, porem que tanto o proprio conceito de democracia quanto a referida a regra de escolh sáo isentas de problemas e, em especial, geram certos paradoxos. Assim passa-se em revista aqui alguns dos mais importantesparadoxos eleitorais, sem a pretensáo de resoIve-los", mas com o intuito de ampliar a discussao critica e portanto, fortalecer praticas politicas desejaveis. (shrink)

The purpose of the book is to attempt to ascertain the views of President Barack Obama related to the field of education. This is done by first studying his own personal education and then following his spoken and written comments as a social worker, college professor, and as a state and federal legislator. In addition, there is an analysis of the positions he has taken during his political campaigns. Following this, there is a description of the actions he has taken (...) thus far in the field of education during his presidency. Using this background the author seeks to suggest his likely initiatives in education during the remainder of his presidency. (shrink)

The notion of Simulative Reasoning in the study of propositional attitudes within Artificial Intelligence (AI) is strongly related to the Simulation Theory of mental ascription in Philosophy. Roughly speaking, when an AI system engages in Simulative Reasoning about a target agent, it reasons with that agent’s beliefs as temporary hypotheses of its own, thereby coming to conclusions about what the agent might conclude or might have concluded. The contrast is with non-simulative meta-reasoning, where the AI system reasons within a detailed (...) theory about the agent’s (conjectured) reasoning acts. The motive within AI for preferring Simulative Reasoning is that it is more convenient and efficient, because of a simplification of the representations and reasoning processes. The chapter discusses this advantage in detail. It also sketches the use of Simulative Reasoning in an AI natural language processing system, ATT-Meta, that is currently being implemented. This system is directed at the understanding of propositional attitude reports. In ATT-Meta, Simulative Reasoning is yoked to a somewhat independent set of ideas about how attitude reports should be treated. Central here are the claims that (a) speakers often employ commonsense (and largely metaphorical) models of mind in describing agents’ attitudes, (b) the listener accordingly needs often to reason within the terms of such models, rather than on the basis of any objectively justifiable characterization of the mind, and (c) the commonsense models filter the suggestions that Simulative Reasoning comes up with concerning target agents’ reasoning conclusions. There is a yet tighter connection between the commonsense models and the Simulative Reasoning. It turns out that Simulative Reasoning can be rationally reconstructed in terms of a more general type of reasoning about the possibly-counterfactual “world” that the target agent believes in, together with an assumption that that agent has a faithful representation of the world. In the ATT-Meta approach, the reasoner adopts that assumption when it views the target agent through a particular commonsense model (called IDEAS-AS-MODELS). (shrink)

The science of the mind, and of consciousness in particular, needs carefully to consider people's common-sense views of the mind, not just what the mind really is. Such views are themselves an aspect of the nature of (conscious) mind, and therefore part of the object of study for a science of mind. Also, since the common-sense views allow broadly successful social interaction, it is reasonable to look to the common-sense views for some rough guidance as to the real nature of (...) the mind. On the other hand, to the extent that common-sense views are inaccurate, and perhaps even in gross conflict with the true nature of the mind, one interesting scientific question is: why do we hold such views, given our access to our own minds? Why should introspection be limited in a way that allows inaccurate views to hold sway? Now, common-sense views of the mind are revealed in natural language discourse that describes mental states, and such descriptions are largely metaphorical. The metaphors are used within thinking about the mind as well as in language. Therefore the study of metaphor is central to the study of mind. The present article is a preliminary study of the importance of metaphor in the scientific study of consciousness. It concentrates on analysing the nature of a range of important metaphors of mind, briefly discussing the extent to which they can be used to describe or qualify states of consciousness, and pointing to important questions about the nature of consciousness that the study of the metaphors raises. The article further conjectures that the reason people use metaphors in describing themselves is often not (just) that they have intellectually worked out some structural analogy --- e.g., between interactions of physical objects in physical space and interactions of ideas in the mind --- but rather that they {\it feel} their own minds to be as described by the metaphor --- e.g., they feel that the ideas in their minds are interacting physical entities. This matter of how a mind feels to itself is an aspect of the central issue of consciousness, namely its phenomenal quality. -/- (NB: The archived file is a preprint. However, it is substantially the same as the published version.). (shrink)

This book offers geographical perspectives on the condition of the United States at the outset of the twenty-first century. It compares the American ideals of liberty, equality, individual opportunity, and social improvement with the contemporary condition of the regions, states and localities - the ideal American space with its reality as a place. It uses the public standard provided by the official ideology of the United States to see how well things are really going. The authors consider the contrast between (...) ideal and reality at local, state, and national levels in education, health, and welfare, in community, race, gender, and class relations, in economic and industrial development, and in the use and exploitation of America's landscape. Each chapter addresses the issues through evidence of long-term and recent trends, and grounds its arguments in information. American Space/American Place provides a series of compelling insights into the current condition of American society, its natural environment, and its place within the world. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the contemporary debate over moving from an individualist form of liberalism to one that seeks to accommodate the special claims of various groups in modern society. I deal with authors who examine ways that group dynamics affect the individual. They are worried about whether it is possible or wise to extend individualist liberalism into a group-accommodating liberalism. Presently, it is a matter of deep controversy how liberal democracies ought to interpret and accommodate the social reality and (...) normative claims of racial minorities. ;Race denotes privilege, it precipitates class antagonisms, hostility, and anger between various groups, it motivates misconceptions and misunderstandings. Racism is responsible for both immediate and intergenerational harm. And yet, the members of disadvantaged racial groups see their racial identity as something precious that should be preserved. For many the opportunity to identify with others in terms of a common racial heritage is an important source of pride. This disparity poses special problems for philosophical liberalism. What is the philosophical import of race and racism for various political theories within the contemporary Anglo American tradition of individualist liberalism? How ought the liberal tradition, an individualist thesis, to interpret and accommodate racial identity? ;This dissertation casts the philosophical debate concerning race in a new light. I argue that whether racial identities are compatible with liberal democratic ideals depends on how one defines race and the liberal ideals involved. Hence, I urge a critical stance on the issue of race. I am critical of both classical individualist liberalism, and the stand that groups do not pose any problems in a modern liberal democracy. (shrink)

Müller argues that double dissociations do not imply underlying modularity of the cognitive system, citing neural networks as examples of fully distributed systems that can give rise to double dissociations. We challenge this claim, noting that suchdouble dissociations typically do not “scale-up,” and that even some singledissociations can be difficult to account for in a distributed system.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation, AISC 2004, held in Linz, Austria in September 2004. The 17 revised full papers and 4 revised short papers presented together with 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are devoted to all current aspects in the area of symbolic computing and AI: mathematical foundations, implementations, and applications in industry and academia.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation, AISC 2000, held in Madrid, Spain in July 2000. The 17 revised full papers presented together with three invited papers were carefully reviewed and revised for inclusion in the book. Among the topics addressed are automated theorem proving, logical reasoning, mathematical modeling of multi-agent systems, expert systems and machine learning, computational mathematics, engineering, and industrial applications.

Schumaker (philosophy, science and technology department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) examines how the terms of posture encompass all the major disciplines and investigates a variety of philosophical topics: abstract thought, ...

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with (...) substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason (...) against every for of relativism. (shrink)

The apparently simple question, ‘Does philosophy of education have a future?’, is without a simple answer. Like so many other questions, it all depends on what we mean, and in this case, what we mean by the expression ‘philosophy of education’. I shall look at it in all of three ways: as a social institution, as an academic activity and as an intellectual pursuit. By doing so, it will become evident that consideration of each of them in turn will give (...) somewhat different answers, which not only adds to the complexity of the question, but also adds to the richness of the answer. From this we, as individuals and as members of a particular community, can begin to reflect on the sort of future philosophy of education might have and what, if anything, we ought to do about it. (shrink)

Abstract:I argue for taking John Dewey's pluralistic ethics as a starting point, or embedded practice, from and in which technological innovations are conceptualized, critiqued, designed, tested, and eventually implemented. Dewey reconstructs human reason into operational intelligence where all behavior becomes gradually imaginative. I take Dewey's view of moral deliberation as a basis for a responsible process-based methodology combining creative technological design with the training of imaginative prospection. I further use Dewey's conception of technology that holds that implements, but also (...) ideas and concepts are tools, forms of technology. I end by looking at the educational impact for the creative industries. (shrink)

Prologue: Quest for the Personal In the lectures which formed the basis of this book I began, as Chapter i indicates, with a brief review of how the current ...

This is a translation of the chapter on perception of Kumarilabhatta's magnum opus, the Slokavarttika, one of the central texts of the Hindu response to the criticism of the logical-epistemological school of Buddhist thought. In an extensive commentary, the author explains the course of the argument from verse to verse and alludes to other theories of classical Indian philosophy and other technical matters. Notes to the translation and commentary go further into the historical and philosophical background of Kumarila's ideas. The (...) book provides an introduction to the history and the development of Indian epistemology, a synopsis of Kumarila's work and an analysis of its argument. (shrink)